He felt as if somehow Madame de Vionnet
WAS. The great question meanwhile was what Chad thought of his
sister; which was naturally ushered in by that of Sarah's
apprehension of Chad. THAT they could talk of, and with a freedom
purchased by their discretion in other senses. The difficulty
however was that they were reduced as yet to conjecture. He had
given them in the day or two as little of a lead as Sarah, and
Madame de Vionnet mentioned that she hadn't seen him since his
sister's arrival.
"And does that strike you as such an age?"
She met it in all honesty. "Oh I won't pretend I don't miss him.
Sometimes I see him every day. Our friendship's like that. Make
what you will of it!" she whimsically smiled; a little flicker of
the kind, occasional in her, that had more than once moved him to
wonder what he might best make of HER. "But he's perfectly right,"
she hastened to add, "and I wouldn't have him fail in any way at
present for the world. I'd sooner not see him for three months.
I begged him to be beautiful to them, and he fully feels it for
himself."
Strether turned away under his quick perception; she was so odd a
mixture of lucidity and mystery. She fell in at moments with the
theory about her he most cherished, and she seemed at others to
blow it into air.
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